Spruce up your living room with a touch of spring

After a long and cold winter spring is almost at the door. We all can't wait to bask in some sunshine and enjoy again the outdoor. It is after all the most wonderful season of the year, bringing a sense of rebirth and reawakening our senses. Nature awakens from its slumber in an explosion of colours that wipe away the greyness and lifts our moods with it. A great way to maximize this wonderful feeling is to make sure that our home also looks fresh and springy.

Choosing the right colour schemes, or even better, decorating your living room (of bedroom if you so prefer) with a themed tonality ensures that the good mood you took back from a walk in the park stays with you also when you close the door of your home behind you. Spring is also the best time of the year for embarking in a redecorating project, as the temperatures are neither too cold or too hot, ensuring that paint or glue dry at the recommended pace.

The decision that needs to be taken is therefore whether to just repaint the living room with a fresh new coat of paint or to pick a flowery wallpaper and install it. Of course, the first seems easier to do it but the reality is not quite as it appears. Wallpaper technology has developed in leaps and bounds over the last few decades and it's a far cry from the papery mess of a couple of generations ago.  

Wallpaper advantages versus painting your walls

Let's take a look at the possible benefits of installing a wallpaper when compared to just adding a new coat of paint to your walls.

A much broader variety of unique designs to choose from

When picking a wallpaper, the possibilities are almost endless. Whether you go for a botanical design, choose minimalistic, geometric patterns or go for elusive and exotic material with a haptic surface feel, the range of possible combinations simply cannot be matched. This allows to customise the look of your home in a unique way so that it reflects your taste and aesthetics. Paint options are much more limited to a specific range of colours and shades.

Better resistance

Modern wallpaper is more resistant than a painted wall when it comes to  small bumps and little accidents.  It also stands better the test of time, so you can enjoy its design until you decide to give your room a new look.

Easy to install

A common misconception is that wallpaper is difficult to apply. This might have been the case 50 years ago, but nowadays nothing could be further from the truth. All you need to do is to be calm and careful when you apply it to the wall to avoid the occasion air bubble. Compare it with traditional paint, where very often you end up with unwanted shades and an uneven distribution of colour, requiring several coats to obtain a half decent result and it's a no brainer.

It can be cleaned

Most contemporary wallpapers can be easily cleaned with a soft sponge, removing even smudges without problems. Of course, this does not apply to all wallpapers, as there are some materials that are more delicate than others, and it's therefore a good idea to pay attention to the specific details of each models. This is a clear advantage over traditional paint, as all you need to do is dampen a sponge in some soapy water and the damage is gone.

It can cover some imperfections

Old walls show the signs of time and a coat of paid will not do anything to hide this. A wallpaper can instead conceal small imperfections on the wall without too much trouble. Small holes can be simply filled with a polyfilla and, once you apply the wallpaper, your wall will appear flat and new.

 Choosing the right botanical wallpaper

Picking a wallpaper is never easy as there are many models to choose from. If you want to bring that unique spring feeling in your home you are in luck as botanical wallpapers are very much in trend nowadays.

Whether it's a minimalistic and subtle motif, design to stay in the background to highlight a painting or some exquisite piece of furniture or a majestic and lush motive on a feature wall, designed to be the focal point of the room, it is up to your taste and the specifics of your interior design choices. Generally speaking if you go for a large motif it is better to pick a single wall and go monochrome on the other walls, picking the main colour theme of the motif.

What is important however is to pick a design that makes you happy!